No Charters: Inclusion, Ethics, and Epistemic Justice With Adult Immigrant Students in Nonprofit/Community-Based Education

• In Event: Friday Roundtable Session 9:45 am
  In Roundtable Session: Adult Immigrant and Multilingual Education (Table 2)

Abstract

In adult immigrant education, students’ backgrounds and stories of home are centered by practitioners to create belonging and support learning. However, such “inclusive” practices may generate unsafe spaces, cause harm, and uphold racial, linguistic, and epistemic hierarchies despite practitioners’ commitments. A 2023 multiphase study of two Toronto-based organizations supporting newcomers explored students’ views of “inclusive” teaching and how it should be defined. The study contrasted teachers’ attempts at “inclusion”—reflecting their epistemic, ethical, and political authority—and students’ activities of compliance, self-protection, and resistance. Our team—a white queer settler PI and three racialized, gender diverse, first- and second-generation research assistants—invites the audience to join our critical interdependent dialogue about inclusion, belonging, and authority in (more) anti-racist adult education with immigrant students.

Authors

• Katherine E. Entigar, University of Toronto - OISE

• Kameka Morrisson, University of Toronto - OISE

• Abarna Selvarajah, University of Toronto

• Vidya Sri, University of Toronto - OISE